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Massive inconsistencies continue to affect USASpending.gov data

Monday - 8/4/2014, 5:19am EDT

By Ariel Levin-WaldmanSpecial to Federal News Radio

Agencies have not been properly reporting their grants and loans to
USASpending.gov, according to the Government Accountability Office. A probe of
data on the website found that only 2-to-7 percent of awards listed were entirely
consistent when checked against agencies records.

"Although agencies generally reported information for contracts to
USASpending.gov, they did not properly report information on assistance awards,
totaling nearly $619 billion," GAO said in its report it
released Friday.

GAO said the most common data inconsistency were descriptions of an award's place
of performance. The names of recipients are the most consistent between records
and online. GAO could not determine how consistent other award records were
because agencies' records were incomplete or inadequate.

The report said 10 percent of awards information could not be verified and a
significant amount of information could not be verified about program source
information and the state of performance.

Among the inconsistencies, GAO found that some online awards records did not have
verifiable data from their issuing agencies. The Office of Management and Budget
placed requirements on agencies to ensure their data has substantiated information
and verifying documents, but GAO said the standards have not been effective.

When explaining its lack of data reporting, the Millennium Challenge Corporation
said it did not know how to report its awards to foreign recipients and non-
governmental organizations. But GAO said OMB has clear instructions for doing so.

Data reporting instructions are unclear for other agencies as well. The CIA does
not have to report awards for classified projects, and said it is also exempt from
reporting non-classified project awards to prevent people from finding out the
agency's requirements. OMB's reporting guidelines are not clear if non-classified
projects are exempt, GAO stated.